


Rain

by lait_tea1



Series: Days of Training [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo | Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem
Genre: Gen, Rain, Seventh Platoon Shenanigans, but it's with all of them and they just chill/aka. fight, like that cliche thing where two people get caught out in the rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24372217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lait_tea1/pseuds/lait_tea1
Summary: The Seventh Platoon gets caught out in the rain while out training and seek shelter in a cave they happen to find. They sit around a fire, take a nap and Luke and Katarina enjoy a small strategy game when everyone's dozing off.There are hints of Kris/Katarina and Roderick/Cecil, but I'm just going to call it a genfic since they’re not major/it’s mostly based off their friendships anyway.
Relationships: Luke (Fire Emblem) & Katarina (Fire Emblem)
Series: Days of Training [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760962
Kudos: 4





	Rain

**Author's Note:**

> ~~I managed to write this up between times I was supposed to be working and it's hardly edited. I gave it a scan but I might edit this tomorrow or something.~~
> 
> Enjoy another one of these genfic drabbles between the Seventh Platoon; this time, also with a section featuring Luke and Katarina playing a strategy game together (you might recognise 'what' they're playing) while everyone takes a well-deserved nap.
> 
> Also, I somehow manage to write a drabble about these guys that does not exceed 5000 words for once. (I was going to write another one where they were stuck inside Altea Castle while it was raining outside, but I somehow ended up writing this. Well, I hope you enjoy more content of the Seventh Platoon!)
> 
> EDIT 26/05/2020: I edited this, fixed up the mistakes that were bothering me and ended up adding a couple hundred words through edits and added stuff.
> 
> EDIT 29/05/2020: [I made art for this.](https://20lait1.tumblr.com/post/619461773942194176/the-seventh-platoon-gets-caught-out-in-the-rain) Uh... I hope anyone out there who stumbles upon this fic enjoys it! I had fun drawing this scene, so... I don't know; maybe I'll attempt drawing something for the other two stories in this series as well.

“Why are we even following Kris?!” Cecil yelled.

The others froze at the sudden realisation. As if to punish them for it, another sheet of rain splattered over their heads and drenched them with even more water.

Before anyone really had a chance to say anything about it, Kris himself decided to interject; without even realising it himself.

“I found something!” The faraway voice of their commander came from the thick tangle of trees before them. “It’s – hey, I found shelter, guys!”

Despite their initial wariness, they didn’t need any more motivation to keep moving. Trudging onwards through the thick slush that was grass, they followed Kris’s voice and almost immediately stumbled into a small clearing before the towering, rocky side of the hill they’d somehow found themselves at. And nestled into the rocky crevice was a cave; the entrance partially hidden by the thick, waterlogged greenery clinging over it like silken curtains, if they were wet and covered with dirt.

It would’ve been easy enough to miss if not for the head of blue hair sticking out between the leafy green fronds. Kris beckoned with the hand holding his sword, grinning and clearly proud of himself despite the water pouring down over his face from the heavy rain. “Look what I found!”

“It’s no Altea Castle, but it’ll do!” Luke declared, pushing his way through the hanging plants and stepping inside. The others hastily followed as another crash of thunder rang out overhead.

“Stop flicking water everywhere, Luke.” Cecil snapped. “Some of us actually need somewhere dry to sit.”

“While I have no idea where we are… I’m glad we at least found shelter for now.” Katarina sighed with relief, untying her scarf from her neck and wringing it out by the entrance. “Brr… it’s cold.”

As if in response to her, Kris’s voice suddenly echoed from somewhere deeper in the cave. “Hey, look! There’s wood here! Looks like we aren’t the first people to use this for shelter.”

“Wood? That means…” Ryan perked up for a split second before immediately sighing with disappointment. “That’s great, but… we don’t have the materials to start a fire, I think. And none of us really know how to…”

“I’ll get a fire started!”

“…well, we shouldn’t be surprised by that. Kris does know a strange variety of skills, after all.” Roderick glanced back outside at the roaring storm. The wind changed directions with a howl and almost immediately blasted everyone by the entrance with yet another layer of freezing cold water.

“Gah… I’m completely soaked.”

“Luke, what are you doing?!” Cecil suddenly barked, turning her attention back to the other squire. Luke didn’t stop in his attempts to wriggle out of his armour, fiddling at the water-slicked belt buckles across the side of his chest. “What do you mean? I’m not going to sit around for a few more hours in soaking wet clothes.”

“Show some decency–!”

“He does have a point though… we are going to get sick from the cold if we don’t dry off.” Roderick pointed out. Cecil turned her glare towards him, then crossed her arms and huffed. “Well, fine. But it’s not like we can… you know, do that here, can we? Especially not in front of him.”

“We’re not… completely stripping down.” Roderick muttered after a rather long pause, voice strained. “Just… we should attempt to wring out our clothes as much as we can, at least.”

“I got the fire going! I think!” Kris suddenly called again.

“Well, let’s go cozy up!” Luke declared, finally managing to unbuckle his chestplate. He cradled it under an arm as he strode off towards the flickering light in the centre of the musty darkness.

Ryan eagerly followed the other green-haired squire, shivering in his own wet clothes. Cecil sighed, a hand unconsciously coming up to twist at a sopping wet section of her sleeve. “There’s not really another choice, is there?”

They’d taken about four steps towards Kris’s flickering flame when a harsh gust of wind whistled through the cave’s entrance and everything went dark, completely casting the six squires in shadow. A shrill scream rang out through the cave and needless to say, the Seventh Platoon panicked–

“Wait, no! I got it, I got it–!”

The fire weakly fluttered to life again. Kris breathed out a sigh of relief and pulled his hands away from their tiny campfire, pushing a couple of the loose pieces of timber back towards the growing fire. “Got it.”

He turned around.

“…C-cecil, you d-don’t have to attempt to break my arm – ow, please, you can let go now–!”

Ryan blinked wide-eyed at said red-haired cavalier from where he had made himself comfortable next to the newly-formed campfire; keeping his mouth shut, because he knew well enough from experience (and Luke’s mistakes) that prodding Cecil, especially when she was caught unaware, was never a good way to go.

Cecil’s gaze swept the tiny cavern, breaths coming heavy and stuttered, before finally noticing everyone staring at her. Through the weak light of their campfire, it was hard to tell, but her cheeks had definitely grown rosier after her initial paleness.

She huffed, withdrawing her arms from where she had been clinging on to the closest person – who happened to be Roderick – and instead folding them over her chest. “What?!” She snapped harshly, glaring at Luke.

“Why are looking at me?!”

“Er… sorry about that.” Kris said, before Cecil could begin fighting Luke again. “I promise it won’t happen again; the fire looks big enough to withstand a little wind now.” He crouched down by the fire again and shucked off his glove somewhere against the side of the cave (which was a lot smaller than it originally seemed, now that the cave was lit up), then began peeling off his cape. “My grandfather always said to take off all your clothes to dry when you can if you’re caught in a storm, since they sap your body heat.”

“K-k-kris!” Katarina all but shrieked, especially when Kris started to attempt to remove his trousers. “T-that’s–!”

Cecil cleared her throat and unsheathed her sword to point threateningly at Kris, finally regaining her composure – well, mostly. “None of us need to see any of that. Do I need to beat some common sense back into you too?!”

“Huh?” Kris squinted up at her, but thankfully did not continue with removing his clothes. “How else are we going to get dry? We can’t all get sick from sitting around freezing in our wet clothes, and we even have a perfectly warm fire here to–”

“There are other people here. You can’t just… do that.” Roderick tried to say as evenly as he could. Kris continued to stare at them in genuine befuddlement.

“…ah, it’s nice and cozy!” Luke decided to break the moment by chucking off the remaining pieces of his armour to a corner of the cave and shuffling closer to the roaring campfire. He made a face as he ground the toe of his boot against the dusty floor with a wet squishing noise. “Oh, my socks are wet though.”

“None of us needed to hear that…” Ryan mumbled.

“Indeed.” Roderick agreed, stepping past Kris and finding himself a spot next to the fire too. “Well, there’s nothing much we can do about our current situation except wait out the storm until we can return safely to the castle. I can only be glad that our steeds did not accompany this on our training session today.”

“Imagine trying to fit three horses in here,” Luke added. “And imagine the smell of wet horse–”

“Please. Shut up.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to make pleasant conversation!”

Kris glanced at Katarina, who still appeared to be frozen in place. He frowned at the blotchy redness across her face and rose to his feet, reaching over to press his palm to her forehead. “Katarina, have you caught a cold already? That’s not good… we don’t have any medicine on hand–”

“I’m fine–!” She squeaked, flapping a hand in front of her face and taking a step back. “I’m perfectly fine!”

“Alright, if you say so…” Kris’s brow furrowed as he studied Katarina’s face, letting his hand drop to his side. “But if you’re feeling unwell at any time, don’t hesitate to say so. And here, sit closer to the fire; I don’t want any of our platoon members getting sick if I can help it…”

-x-x-x-

Another pebble bounced off the wall next to Roderick’s head and ended up hitting Cecil in the arm. Cecil grabbed one of the stray pieces of timber from that fallen from where it had been stacked up in the campfire and chucked it at Luke, striking him square in the forehead.

“Ow! My eye–!”

“Serves you right.” Cecil scoffed. “Can’t you find something better to do?”

“It’s not like there’s anything to do since you guys completely shut me down on the conversation!”

“Please. Nobody wants to hear about your latest attempts at harassing women.” Roderick said dryly. “But if I could give you a piece of advice for that, it’d be for you to actually try and be a good role model for once – if not for Ryan, then for the ‘women’ you so deeply care about. I hear the ladies love that.”

“Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking or not, Cold-Eyes…”

“I don’t need a role model – I’m not that young!” Ryan protested. “Though… Brother always said that I should use Luke as a role model for what to not do if I become a knight…”

“Hey!”

“You know, if you can’t think of anything to do, we can continue training–”

“No, Kris.” Katarina mumbled. “Not here, not now… we don’t have space for that, anyway.”

Kris hummed lowly, crestfallen. “I see.”

“Can we just talk or, I don’t know, play a game or something?” Luke sighed, tossing a pebble from hand to hand. “Does anyone have cards? I’m running out of rocks to throw.”

“If you throw anything else at me, I’ll throw my sword at you next.”

Luke’s pebble clattered to the floor.

Katarina raised a hand. “We can practice tactics or, er, play a strategy game?”

“Ugh, that’s boring.” Luke complained, rolling his eyes at the mere thought. “We get enough lectures from Sir Frey already. Look, even Ryan’s falling asleep just hearing about it!”

“I think he’s just tired.” Kris pointed out, glancing at the drowsy young archer already curling up on his side next to the fire. “Just keep your voice down and try not to wake him, Luke…”

-x-x-x-

“There is a long bridge right down the middle here.” Katarina scratched out several blobs in the dust on the floor through the dim light of their campfire. “It’s surrounded by water, and you and your army of two cavaliers, a mercenary, an archer and a mage are here, in this stretch of land at the centre here.”

Several crosses were added to the crudely drawn diagram.

“Your enemy… is here.” Another set of crosses were added to the ‘map’ closest to where Katarina was sitting. “And… you also have an enemy army here to intercept you.”

“Really? Two different armies?”

Katarina sighed. “Alright, fine. You don’t have to fight them both… you just need your army to get here.” She sketched out a blob in the ground. “That’s a fort. Your aim is to get there without losing any of your soldiers.”

Luke frowned as he leaned over the map, surprisingly engrossed in Katarina’s ‘strategy game’. With a stick of his own in his hand, he gouged a long, straight line running down the bridge towards the fort. “Easy. I just go down here with my army.”

“You can’t…”

“I have three cavaliers. I can travel wherever I want.”

“That’s not how it… wait. You only have two–”

“I’m a cavalier, aren’t I?”

“Well… I guess.”

“Alright, fine. I won’t do that.” Luke sighed and marked out another line. “I’d put myself here to block the first army.”

“There are too many soldiers. You lose.”

“I’m not done yet!” At his raised voice, Cecil let out a sleepy mutter and opened her eyes. Luke froze for a second; then Cecil mumbled something and tucked her head back under her arm again, and almost immediately slumped back against a sleeping Roderick’s side.

“Right…” Luke continued in a quieter voice, shooting Cecil a wary glance of his own before returning to his ‘genius plan’. “The mercenary will lead the charge towards the fort, backed up by the mage and archer, because they can attack from a farther distance. And I guess one of the other cavaliers will block the bridge with me. That’s enough people to block the bridge and keep the army from pincering my army, right?”

Katarina squinted at her hand-drawn map and reluctantly nodded. “I suppose so…”

“And the other cavalier can… wait here.” Luke added a cross to the map, closer to where the cross he had deemed ‘himself’ and ‘the other cavalier’. “Then when the mercenary, archer and mage gets to the end of the bridge, where they’ll meet the second army…” Luke’s voice increased in volume again. “They’ll sweep right through the second army! And then we can use our horses to gallop up the bridge here…”

“Uh, no. You can’t do that.” Katarina said quickly. “The other – er, second army, you see… uh, they’re invincible.”

“They’re what?!”

“I mean… er, I mean – the commander of that army… they’re really strong, and none of your weapons can penetrate his armour.” Katarina corrected herself. “Uh, the others are strong though. Like, really strong. So you can’t…”

“Ugh.” Luke groaned into his palm. He paused for a moment to contemplate his plan, shifting position to ease out his numb legs and rest his chin on his hand. “Fine, then. Well, the mercenary can simply hold them off by keeping guard over the bridge… wait, I have an idea! The third cavalier before can be stationed here to protect the mage and archer…”

“Mhm…”

“And once a path is clear towards the fort, the two cavaliers here can go!” Luke grinned proudly to himself, accidentally kicking dust over most of the diagram with how he jabbed his stick into the rocky ground. His stick snapped in half, but he continued waving the broken end around as he demonstrated his plan. “Since they’re on horses, they can gallop right along here, all the way to where the others are waiting…”

“They can’t join the fight. They’re… injured from fighting the first army.”

“Hey, what about vulneraries?!”

“Uh…” Katarina shrugged. “Pretend they don’t exist for now?”

“Can the mage not heal?!”

“They don’t have heal staves?”

Luke sighed. “Fine – no big deal! The Legendary Luke can handle this!”

“No, he’s injured.” Katarina tapped her stick against the long groove Luke had added in the diagram.

“That’s not–” Luke shook his head and sighed again, though he didn’t too deterred at all. “Never mind. Well, while the mercenary and the third cavalier open a path, I’d travel to the fort in no time at all. And the archer and mage… eh, they can come along here too with them.”

“They would be attacked by…” Katarina squinted at her diagram. “Actually, there are… two archers here! No, three – they’re in front of the fort.”

“Are you trying to set me up to lose right now?” Luke huffed. “You keep on adding things!”

“They, er, were already there since the beginning…”

Kris blinked open one eye from where he had been dozing against the wall and peered at them through the light of their campfire. “…are you still at it?”

“Yes!” Luke waved a dismissive hand at their blue-haired commander, still studying Katarina’s map intensely. “Give me a moment – I’ve nearly got this!”

“Mm. Alright.” Kris closed his eye again. Luke continued scratching marks all over the diagram as he proclaimed his plan: “Get the archer and mage to shoot down the archers–”

“They get shot back in retaliation and die.”

“Then–! The two cavaliers can get rid of two of those archers…!”

“There’s still one left and both your mage and archer will die if you attack the archer with them. And if you leave it too long, the archer will pick off your cavaliers.”

“Gaah!” Luke buried his head in his hands. “What is this?!”

Katarina hid a smile. “I thought you said that ‘the Legendary Luke’ won’t let anything stop him?” When Luke did not respond, she gently drew a faint circle around the mercenary and cavalier he had left by the bridge. “You forgot about these two. The cavalier’s javelin can also be used as a lance, remember?”

“Ah!” The fire returned to Luke’s eyes as he scrawled over the diagram. “That’s it! So the cavalier here gallops over heroically and attacks the final archer! Then, the final blow – the mage casts a powerful Elfire, allowing our army to enter the fort!”

“…and the mercenary?”

Luke squinted at the diagram. “Eh, he’ll be fine. I’ve basically won, anyway.” He dropped his broken stick and stretched his arms behind his back. “Goodness, that was a tough one. But the Legendary Luke made it through again!” He shot Katarina a lazy smirk. “I’m a good enough tactician, am I? I could be the platoon’s tactician if I really wanted to! You think the ladies appreciate a man who can think as well as fight?”

Katarina giggled softly to herself, unable to hold back her amusement any longer. “Yes, of course, Luke. Of course…”

“That was a lot more fun that I’d thought.” Luke admitted. “How many of those did we get through?”

“Uh… I think it was about… eight?” Katarina shrugged. “I’m not sure – I was making up the scenarios along the way, really…”

“Hah! I knew it!”

“Hehe…” With Luke’s enthusiasm giving her extra confidence, Katarina placed a hand to her chest with an exaggerated flourish and recounted in a dramatic voice: “Oh, how could my plans been foiled so easily?”

The two shared a comfortable moment of laughter. As if to add to the moment, a shaft of sunlight suddenly sifted through the greenery hanging outside the cave’s entrance and lit the diagram – now reduced to nothing but a series of scratches on the floor – in a warm, amber glow.

“Oh… the storm’s stopped already? Time must’ve passed faster than I’d anticipated.” Katarina remarked, peering outside. The rain had almost stopped entirely, aside from the light drizzling that was nothing compared to the sheets of rain from before – the sky was still thick with clouds but the sun, dipping down beneath the mountains to the west, turned the sky a brilliant blue-and-orange, signalling the start of dusk.

“I think the others have had their afternoon nap long enough.” Luke said with a mischievous grin, turning to the slumbering squires. Katarina glanced at him with half a mind to stop him; then decided against it and sat back to watch.

Luke grabbed his chestplate from off the ground, picked up his metal sword and with a wink and a barely muffled snort of laughter, and slammed the flat of the blade against the armour with a resounding _clang_.

Ryan practically jumped out of his skin and nearly fell directly onto the smouldering embers of their dying fire with a scream. Cecil yelped as she shot awake and, apparently misjudging where she was, ended up slamming her face into Roderick’s knee. Roderick jumped awake too, accidentally kneeing Cecil in the face again and getting a vicious elbow in the gut in return, causing him to keel over and for the two cavaliers to tumble to the ground in a tangled heap.

Luke exploded into laughter. “Did you see that?! Katarina, did you see that?!”

Katarina nodded rapidly, unable to keep the grin off her face. “I definitely did–”

“Luke.” Cecil snarled, pushing herself off Roderick and picking up her sword while rubbing her bruised forehead with the other hand. “So it was your fault, huh? I should’ve guessed…”

“What?! No! Wait, what are you talking ab – wait, no, back off, it’s not–” Luke’s sentence ended in a terrified scream as he sprinted straight out of their cave and through the wet plants hanging in front of the entrance, promptly splattering water all over his clothes again as he ran outside.

Katarina glanced at Kris and was surprised to see him still snoring peacefully away as if nothing had happened at all.

“Mngh… what… what happened?” Ryan said mid-yawn, rubbing at his eyes and squinting after the two cavaliers. Katarina chuckled softly to herself. “Luke was just being himself again. How was your nap?”

Ryan yawned again and sat up, brushing the tiny pebbles and dirt from the right side of his face and clothes. “Uncomfortable…”

“That’s to be expected.” Katarina hummed. She glanced at Roderick, trying to squash the smile that was threatening to creep up her face again. “And you? I don’t think I’ve seen you so relaxed in quite a long time. And it looks like Cecil quite appreciated using you as a pillow, too, though don’t tell her I said that…”

“She… she did what?"

“Nothing.” Katarina giggled to herself. In a softer voice, she added, mostly to herself: “It was cute, though.”

“…”

“Should someone wake Kris up?” Ryan asked, rubbing at his sleep-addled eyes. Without even really waiting for an answer, he stumbled over to where their commander was snoozing and reached out a hand to start shaking his shoulder–

“RYAN, WAIT!” Katarina suddenly shrieked. “WATCH – DON’T GET – CONCUSSION INCIDENT!”

The green-haired squire almost immediately shot fully awake at that jumbled combination of words – somehow understanding them for their full meaning – and shrank away from Kris for a moment. He shot Katarina a grateful nod at the reminder, and instead opted to try poke Kris awake with a broken stick that happened to be lying on the ground nearby.

Roderick frowned as he began to scoop up the unattended pieces of armour and weapons lying around. “Did I… did we really just sleep through the storm?”

“Seems like it.” Katarina replied, still keeping her eyes on Ryan and his futile attempts to wake Kris up. “I mean, at least everyone got some extra rest. It really seemed like you needed it…”

“We only have Sir Jagen to worry about now.” Roderick pointed out almost nonchalantly.

Katarina froze. Ryan stopped poking Kris with a stick to stare wide-eyed at Roderick for a moment.

“Ah.” Katarina said weakly, breaking the long silence (which was only staccatoed by Kris’s soft snores). “I… nearly forgot about him…”

“He probably thinks we’re dead from how long we haven’t been back.” Ryan offered.

“Ryan, I don’t think that’d happen.”

“We can just tell him we got caught up in the storm when we were training outside and ended up taking shelter here. Which is what happened, so it’s not like we’re lying.” Katarina brushed the remaining dirt and dust from her hands and picked up the scarf she had discarded on the floor earlier. A close examination of it made her realise how much dirt had actually been on the cave’s floor; but at least it was dry.

“…I’m… awake?” Kris finally opened his eyes; thankfully, without an explosive awakening of a violent headbutt to the nose this time. Ryan sighed with relief and dropped his stick, taking a couple of steps back as if still worried Kris was going to end up headbutting him in the face anyway. “I was worried I would have had to get closer there…”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Never mind.” Roderick interrupted. “We should head back to Altea Castle as soon as possible now that the storm’s stopped, and pick up Luke and Cecil along the way… wherever they’ve headed off to. Hopefully they’ve not gone far.”

“You know… I think I might leave the directions home to Roderick this time.” Katarina remarked playfully. Kris did not respond to the jab this time; though he did still look a little groggy, from how he was stumbling about the interior of the cave using the wall as support, so Katarina decided not to push it further.

“Let’s go, then.” Roderick said, finally picking up a fallen sword left lying on the ground and adding it to his pile of miscellaneous items. “With a viable excuse this time, we might actually be able to avoid punishment from Sir Jagen.”

Ryan stretched and blinked blearily. “Oh… can’t we stay a little longer? I don’t wanna do push-ups again…”

“Relax, Ryan. Besides, it wasn’t as if we didn’t do anything productive today.” Katarina offered a smile. “I mean, we practiced tactics… er, well, Luke and I did…”

“Let’s just go before Ryan ends up scaring himself too much with whatever Sir Jagen’s gong to make us do this time.” Kris said aloud. “Huh… where’s my sword?”

“I have it.” Roderick was already ducking past the waterlogged greenery at the cave entrance with his pile of discarded weapons and armour.

“Oh, thanks. Er, could I have it back…?” Kris jogged after him out into the open clearing outside. Ryan followed them, running a hand through the mussed hair at the back of his head and clutching his bow in his other hand.

Katarina smiled softly to herself at the tranquil moment. The rain had slowed to a gentle drizzle, the sky was a beautiful purple-orange and the air smelled clear and earthy now that the storm had passed. Even though what they had experienced was nowhere close to particularly momentous, especially not for the Seventh Platoon and the chaos they’d get themselves into; Katarina still treasured these mundane moments, and made sure to store them at the back of her mind as she hurried after the two taller squires.

Their serene peace was broken by the distant yelling and screaming over the distance from a certain green-haired cavalier being chased around in circles by Cecil with a sword, but not even that could deter Katarina from the warmth that was pooling in her heart as they started the long trek back through the fields back to Altea Castle – back home.


End file.
